Partial sell order query on fees and interpretations of a sell order

Hi all,

Today I posted a sell on some holdings near market close on PPH at 3.80. I placed a cancel on the order, however it appears that during the time it took for the cancellation to process, I had a partial selldown of the total order, around 50% of the order. I come from a FOREX trading background, so there are a few things with sharetrading that demand learning whilst in play.

The account has now been charged with a full brokerage fee and exchange fee, with still half my holding remaining and now half sold, meaning I will potentially have to pay a brokerage fee again to sell the second remaining half of my initial parcel.

I would have expected that if I had specified a full parcel to be sold at a set rate, sales would not be confirmed matched until all units had been allocated at the set rate?

Does it work differently than I envisioned? My broker is ASB securities. I have found them great to deal with so far, but this seemed like something I need to understand clearly.

Once you cancelled the order that was the end of that transaction. You will pay brokerage on the amount sold as if that was the order in first place.

Thank you 777, that answers my question.

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Originally Posted by visionary

Hi all,

Today I posted a sell on some holdings near market close on PPH at 3.80. I placed a cancel on the order, however it appears that during the time it took for the cancellation to process, I had a partial selldown of the total order, around 50% of the order. I come from a FOREX trading background, so there are a few things with sharetrading that demand learning whilst in play.

The account has now been charged with a full brokerage fee and exchange fee, with still half my holding remaining and now half sold, meaning I will potentially have to pay a brokerage fee again to sell the second remaining half of my initial parcel.

I would have expected that if I had specified a full parcel to be sold at a set rate, sales would not be confirmed matched until all units had been allocated at the set rate?

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You expect wrongly. If a buyer only wants a portion of your shares and the price offered is the same price that you will accept then just a portion of your shares will be sold to meet the buyer demand, and you will be left with the remainder. In most cases where liquidity is good, the remainder of your shares will be bought by another buyer at the same price and the whole transaction will look seamless from your perspective. But in other cases you may have to wait for even a few days until another buyer is found offering the price you want for the remainder of your shares.

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Does it work differently than I envisioned? My broker is ASB securities. I have found them great to deal with so far, but this seemed like something I need to understand clearly.

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Many brokers have a minimum brokerage fee. The whole minimum fee will be charged on the first part of a two part transaction. If the transaction is never completed, you will end up paying a pretty expensive broker fee on a percentage basis as a result. But when the second half of the transaction goes through you should have no more brokerage charged to you, provided that 'minimum fee' is enough to cover the second part of the transaction as well.

This happened to me today but from a buyers perspective. I put in a bid on 5th July and the order was partially filled with full brokerage charged. The order was not completed until August 2nd.

SNOOPY

Thank you Snoopy, very helpful and goes a long way to explain the selling strategies I have seen by some in less-liquid holdings. Many thanks.